Vuzix: A Business Running Better Using the Versago Portal Platform

Vuzix Challenges

• Communication and coordination around Customer RFQs
• Communication and coordination around Purchase Requests
• Accuracy and visibility of production floor data and activity
• Lack of easy-to-access insights and analysis of Sales Activity for executives
• Visibility of inventory, BOM explosions, and purchase order receipts

Solution

• Simple, user-friendly Versago web portal enabling people in different roles to access and update only the information they need to perform their job
• Real-time processing and synchronization of portal activity with SAP Business One

ROI

• Reduce risk of lost revenue
• Eliminate time and overhead associated with confusion in responding to quote and internal purchase requests
• Provide quick insight to company sales and production performance
• Stop unnecessary manual data entry into SAP
• Greatly improve customer satisfaction and employee morale
• Return valuable time back to both Vuzix and Customer staff to focus on more valuable activities
• Fully leverage the investment made in SAP Business One!

The Big Picture

ERPs allow for planning, tracking, and measuring a business’s operational processes. However, typically they are touched by only a fraction of the people effecting the business. A business fails to realize its full potential even when it has an ERP because the larger population of employees, customers, and vendors is unable to contribute to or benefit from essential information! This disconnect is costly and introduces speed (and accuracy) bumps across the enterprise. Speed bumps take lots of forms. Some of the more familiar ones are: stuck in an email inbox, filed in a cabinet, hidden in a spreadsheet, not integrated, not mobile, not systematized, etc.

Speed bumps have a way of going unnoticed, slowing things down, sometimes for years. Why? Because people get used to them and the frustration they cause. But they undermine the performance of the company. They are also often the root cause of customer and partner satisfaction problems!

About Vuzix

Vuzix is an industry leader in Augmented Reality (AR) technology. They provide innovative products to defense, security, and other enterprise customers, as well as consumers. They are engaged in the design, manufacturing, marketing, and sale of Waveguides and Smart Glasses. Vuzix origins are in R&D for next-generation military display solutions. They have grown into a leading supplier of smart glasses and augmented reality technologies. Their next step is to bring the next level of Waveguides Optics to the world.

About Versago

Third Wave’s Versago portal platform (including Bizweaver integration and process automation) removes speed bumps in information flow by enabling employees, customers, and vendors to access and contribute to critical business information while in complete sync with SAP Business One. Vuzix is taking full advantage of Versago to remove costly speed bumps in various processes and areas across their business.

With Versago, anyone, can accomplish their tasks easily and accurately at just the level of involvement they need in any process or activity. They can access or update any information via simple, user-friendly web pages from their laptop/desktop computer, tablet, or smartphone.

There is no end to the use-cases Versago can address. To make setup easy, Versago ships with pre-built screens and integrations to SAP Business One.

Vuzix Use-Cases

RFQ Initiation
A large enterprise customer lacked one place to submit RFQs. The customer would send quote requests in an email to one member of the sales team. The rest of the team had no visibility to the RFQs. Without shared visibility and management of the customer requests, Vuzix could not fulfill orders on time. This caused business disruption for the customer and put revenue at risk for Vuzix.

Versago as Customer Portal
Versago is a role-based application. Customers can log in to Versago under a Customer role. They are then able to fill out an RFQ form. They can also review a listing of all submitted RFQs.

Once an RFQ is submitted in Versago, Bizweaver sends a confirmation email to both the requestor and the sales team and creates a sales quotation in SAP.

Purchasing Cycle
Purchase requests were submitted manually outside of SAP. Requestors had limited visibility into the status of the request throughout the purchasing cycle. Buyers had to spend time chasing approvals and then manually re-entering the data into SAP to cut a vendor PO. This process caused delays in fulfilling requests and caused low morale in the Purchasing department as they spent their time completing data entry rather than performing value added activities.

Versago as Purchase Request Portal
People can log in to Versago under a Purchasing role and submit Purchase Requests. This is a form that has built-in lookups to pull relevant vendors and items from SAP in real time, as well as user information. There is another role called Purchasing Buyer that allows the purchasing team to review all requisitions and add the proper G/L coding before the request is emailed to the appropriate approvers.

Production Orders
The system being used was confusing for managers, supervisors, and direct labor employees. It could only be accessed by one person at a time because of licensing costs. Mistakes were made resulting in inaccurate data. This caused problems for supervisors and managers. It also affected the performance of the direct labor employees.

Versago as Production Portal
People in QA and Shipping log-in under a Production role and enter their time, issue materials, and receive finished goods into stock. QC inspectors log all their inspection results. Everyone experiences simple, user-friendly web pages. Users can access issue and receipt error logs and listings of open production order times and time approvals. This enables both operators and supervisors to monitor the transactions being logged through Versago. Bizweaver (included with Versago) processes all the data transacted from Versago into SAP against Production Orders, including issuing items and resources. For the QC processes, Bizweaver invokes inventory transfers to designated warehouses in SAP based on the result of inspections.

The Hits Just Keep On Coming
Companies using Versago form the ‘versago habit’. Once they experience the ease of solving problems for different kinds of users, the ideas for more uses for Versago just keep coming.

Vuzix has also configured an Executive role enabling management to log-in and access charts for comparative sales analysis. Another role enables access to purchase order receipts, inventory levels, and BOM explosions.

Versago enables access to this information in perfect sync with SAP, from any device wherever a user is. It does this via simple, user friendly screens, not complex enterprise application user interfaces.